


Joypunks

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, BAMF Bucky Barnes, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Canon-Typical Violence, Droids, Jedi Mind Tricks, Language, M/M, Mind Control, Sith!Loki, set during Episodes 4-6, sexy times will be tagged later, unapologetic use of Star Wars quotes, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 11:59:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: "Who are you callin' scruffy lookin'?" Clint demanded. "I'm not the one who looks like he's workin' on going undercover as a Wookie. Besides - ain't nothin' wrong with being a damn nerf herder."He stomped off, leaving Natasha and Bucky to stare after him."Well, that went well," Natasha concluded."I need to get you a dictionary for Basic," Bucky muttered.She raised two perfect eyebrows at him."He didn't shoot you this time, though, did he?"Which, Bucky supposed, was true.------------Mistakes were made.That's pretty much the only explanation for how a worthless con-artist, a fallen Sith and a space pirate end up together searching for the one person who can give them hope.





	Joypunks

**Author's Note:**

> As always, a million thanks to Ro for beta reading!

* * *

 

The key to running a good con, Trickshot used to say, was having a dumb face and good luck.

 

Well, Clint had always had one of those going for him.

 

The other?

 

Well, luck had never been on Clint’s side. Not since the day he was born, and sure as hell not  _ now _ as he found himself hurtling through the lower levels of Coruscant, a squad of Stormtroopers on his ass and ‘civilians’ scattering left and right as Clint and his ghostly followers sprinted past.

 

A bolt of blue just barely missed Clint’s ear and fizzled as it impacted with the rusty, graffitied ferrocrete wall to Clint’s right. That had been close.

 

Clint ducked and threw himself to the left, jostling through a pair of decrepit-looking server droids and a masked humanoid, and grabbing at pockets as he went. If he was going to be chased by Imperial troopers, then he was damn well going to make it worth his own while and pick a few pockets on the way.

 

It wasn’t even Clint’s  _ fault _ this time.

 

Mostly. It  _ mostly _ wasn’t Clint’s fault this time.

 

Somewhat.

 

It was, at least, a  _ little _ to blame on someone else. 

 

From a certain point of view.

 

The-

 

The point was, Clint wasn’t a  _ bad _ guy. He just wasn’t a good guy. He knew that. He accepted that. Hell, he was picking the pockets of some of Coruscant’s poorest denizens while Stormtroopers shot at him and chased him. He knew he wasn’t a good guy.

 

But he had to  _ eat _ . 

 

And he had to step in when those pasty-faced Academy recruits needed a lesson in manners, clearly on shore leave and feeling frisky and wanting to slum it up in a less savory quarter of Coruscant - one not high enough up for regular Imperial intervention or profitable enough for Black Sun interference. Clint’s kind of place - just shady enough for him to find some shadows and, typically, not nefarious enough to need his intervention.

 

Until those fucking idiots had forgotten Imperial Standard Basic, or at least just the meaning of the word ‘no’, and tried to get fresh with the serving boy at the tavern - a lithe, midnight-skinned humanoid with luminous eyes and sharp teeth and a low, pleasant voice that, for all that he spoke with an accent, was pretty damn clear when he said  _ no _ to the Imps’ repeated entreaties to warm their laps.

 

And, well, Clint had stepped in. Because, one, the Sabaac hand he had was shit and he was going to lose this round anyway and, two, Clint really didn’t like to see anyone mess with kids and, three, no means no. One of the few lessons his fucked-up father had drilled into Clint and his older brother, Barney - of course, they’d also been informed that they didn’t get to say no to their dear, old dad so… there was that.

 

There was that, and there was the fact that Clint… really, really didn’t have luck on his side. Ever. At all.

 

Because the second Imp that he punched in the face? Pasty-face skinny guy? Yeah. He happened to be the nephew to the commissioner for something-something.  _ Why did rich people need so many commissioners? _

 

So, security guards had been on them lickity-split - much emphasis on the splitting, and Clint getting the hell out of that tavern because there was the little matter of the bounty on his head that wasn’t actually as little of a matter as Clint wanted it to be.

 

Typical, really, for Clint’s Friday nights.

 

Merry chase with the Empire’s finest through the Coruscant underworld, picking pockets and wondering if this was gonna be the night his shitty luck finally ran out entirely, or if-

 

Clint had great eyesight. Freakishly good. The kind of good that had made his brother whisper shit about  _ Jedi _ and earned a fist for the both of them from their dad. 

 

So, Clint saw the guy, even with the flickering lights, the crowds of humans and aliens and droids, and the slight downward sloping curve of the walkway that was ancient and due for maintenance about three centuries ago.

 

Tall, dressed in green and gold and black, and imposing and cold and frozen. Waiting.

 

And Clint had no idea what the fuck he was waiting for, but if it was Clint? Fuck that.

 

But there were Stormtroopers behind him, and Clint literally had nowhere else to go. He could, he supposed, try his hand at fighting and- 

 

And what the hell.

 

Worse ways to go out than this, right?

 

It only took him three more steps, a dodge behind a rusted sign that was definitely lower than regulations permitted, and Clint had the compound bow assembled and three arrows drawn and nocked.

 

_ Stupid weapon _ , Barney had always sneered when Clint played with the simple bow and arrow his mother had made for him back on Corellia.  _ Arrow can’t even take down a nerf _ . 

 

Which was fair enough. But an arrow - and a bow - weren’t made from the dense industrial duraplast and transteel that blasters were. It meant Clint could sneak his weapon in through pretty much any security scanner and-

 

Clint only needed a second, just a swift look over his shoulder, and he had his targets lined up.

 

He aimed, loosed the arrows, and sprinted to new cover.

 

The troopers screamed, and then so did the civilians around them as three of them went down, arrows sunk into the unarmored necks of their suits.

 

Which meant Clint had… four more targets. Plus, weird frozen guy up ahead.

 

Clint prepared another volley of arrows, ducked his head to get another look, and decided on only using one arrow at a time - the civilians were preventing him from taking too many clean shots at once, and also, well, the Imps on his tail were at least smart enough not to be clumped together after Clint had taken down three of them while in tight formation.

 

So, he had to do it one at a time, had to nock and aim and fire and dive for cover, and make sure he wasn’t getting too close to weird frozen guy, and rinse and repeat until- 

 

Until there were no more moving Stormtroopers and no more civilians.

 

The ferrocrete walls were scorched with new blaster marks - the Imps had switched to  _ kill _ from  _ stun _ when there were only three of them left.

 

It was just Clint.

 

And weird frozen guy, who hadn’t moved - not any farther or closer - had made no attempt to intervene in any way at all.

 

Clint hugged the nearest wall, feeling something slimy and warm slide down the back neck of his tunic because of course, and he nocked another arrow.

 

“You one of those cosmic space rhythm monks guys wanting to collect for a sanctuary?” Clint called out. 

 

Now  _ that _ was a good con. Hell, Clint and Barney had even gotten in on that, when they’d been stuck on a Rimworld planet, Clint all of ten and Barney all of fourteen, and they’d dressed up in some stolen sheets and rubber tied around their waists, and asked for alms for the Sanctuary of Taos Mordreg - the name Clint had given his favorite nerf back on Corellia, before their lives had gone to shit. And then Trickshot and the traveling circus had found them and, well, they’d learned how to do different cons.

 

“Do your paltry attempts at humor provide you with all that much comfort?” the guy called back, a sneer curling his thin lips upwards.

 

“Not really, no,” Clint responded honestly.

 

The guy was wearing a lot of metal. Some kind of armor, maybe? Clint wondered if it was Mandalorian. It didn’t  _ really _ look like authentic Mandalorian armor, but it was… something.

 

Something that would probably fetch a few creds on the black market.

 

Clint licked his lips and flicked a thumb over the shaft of his arrow, flicking a little trigger on it that would make the arrow send out an electrical pulse on impact. Even if Clint didn’t manage to find flesh, even if it just hit the armor, the arrow should send out a strong enough little zap to take down weird guy.

 

He hoped.

 

“Clint Barton. You’re taller than I expected.”

 

Okay.

 

The guy knew his name.

 

Which - wasn’t cool. Sure as hell wasn’t  _ okay, _ but… Clint wasn’t exactly a nobody. People knew him… in some circles. Kind of. Not usually by his  _ real _ name, though. Usually, they just called him-

 

“Hawkeye.”

 

Fucking hell.

 

Clint had  _ no _ luck. None at all.

 

“You’ve heard of me, but the legend of your… flowy cape and antler headgear fetish hasn’t filtered down to me yet, my guy.”

 

The sneer was back, and Clint thought there was actually a flicker of amusement in the guy’s expression before it turned icy and, if Clint was honest with himself, a little terrifying. He tightened his grip on the bow.

 

“You shall know me, Clint Barton. Every part of you shall know me so very, very well.” 

 

In other circumstances, circumstances involving some nice diffusers, some Corellian whiskey, a few of those weird ice-nectar candied things from Alderaan that were still floating around and a dark-haired guy who didn’t stare at Clint with crazy eyes, those words might make him feel something other than  _ nope _ . But this wasn’t other circumstances, this was these circumstances, and Clint felt a whole hell of a lot of nope.

 

“Yeah, I’m gonna take a pass on that one. Why don’t we just go our separate ways - you that way, away from me, and me, this way, far the hell away from you.”

 

There was a breeze, just the softest, most subtle shift in the air and-

 

The weird guy was suddenly standing right in front of Clint.

 

He had moved so fast, impossibly fast, faster than any moving walkway Clint had ever seen - so fast that Clint barely had a chance to even breathe.

 

“I don’t recall giving you a choice in the matter,” weird guy said. Up close, his eyes were a hell of a lot crazier.

 

“No one ever gave you the talk about consent?” Clint asked, feeling like his life was some kind of weird circular mess, that he was just revolving through the same damn scenario with slightly different factors every damn day.

 

The guy shrugged, shoulders rolling with the motion, and it was sinuous, his clothes moving slowly and quickly all at once, and Clint-

 

He reached out, and yep. His hand passed right through the guy.

 

“Hologram. I’m getting fucked with by a fucking hologram.”

 

Clint growled and put away his bow.

 

The hologram continued to stare at him, intensely realistic even though Clint  _ knew _ it was just a digital projection. 

 

But where was it coming from?

 

Clint looked up, looked down, looked to his left, looked to his right-

 

“What the shit?” Clint groaned.    
  


There was another one. Another hologram. Same guy. Same crazy eyes.

 

Clint reached out and-

 

Okay. 

 

There was one hologram and one very real weird guy whose metal-plated chest Clint was now groping.

 

“So, about that consent talk, I’m sorry if that’s pushing your personal space boundaries,” Clint said, trying his level best not to fully freak out and failing spectacularly. “I’ll just, back up and off now, and-”

 

But as soon as he even tensed a muscle to move, the weird guy was brandishing a staff. Or a magic wand? With a vibroblade on the end? Maybe it was some kind of lantern or-

 

The guy pressed the thing against Clint’s chest, vibroblade sinking through the thin, threadbare material of Clint’s tunic and piercing his flesh.

 

Clint shuddered in a breath, and it felt like there was ice in his lungs, his veins, spreading through every single part of him and-

 

The fear was gone.

 

The pain was gone.

 

The world was gone.

 

There was nothing.

 

Nothing but Loki.

 

“And now, now do you know me, Clint Barton?”

 

“I do. Tell me how to know you better.”

 

-o-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Do I NEED to start another WIP?  
> Yes, clearly.  
> Should I?  
> Doubtful.
> 
> Never fear, this is only a few chapters but I've been sick and couldn't get it finished for MFD so I have to draw it out a little.


End file.
